Lacy should play with her for exactly half an hour every
afternoon, or an hour when it was too wet to go out.
It must be confessed that this was a harder task to both than the
music lessons. Whether it were from the difference of height, or
from Kate's innate unhandiness, they never could keep that unhappy
shuttlecock up more than three times; and Mrs. Lacy looked as grave
and melancholy all the time as if she played it for a punishment,
making little efforts to be cheerful that were sad to see. Kate
hated it, and was always cross; and willingly would they have given
it up by mutual consent, but the instant the tap of the cork against
the parchment ceased, if it were not half-past five, down sailed Lady
Barbara to inquire after her prescription.
She had been a famous battledore-player in the galleries of Caergwent
Castle; and once when she took up the battledore to give a lesson, it
seemed as if, between her and Mrs. Lacy, the shuttlecock would not
come down--they kept up five hundred and eighty-one, and then only
stopped because it was necessary for her to go to dinner.
She could not conceive anyone being unable to play at battledore, and
thought Kate's failures and dislike pure perverseness. Once Kate by
accident knocked her shuttlecock through the window, and hoped she
had got rid of it; but she was treated as if she had done it out of
naughtiness, and a new instrument of torture, as she called it, was
bought for her.
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